CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: IN KOSOVO

CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: IN KOSOVO; Ethnic Albanians Now Fear Wrath of Serbs

By CARLOTTA GALL

Published: March 26, 1999

PRISTINA, Serbia, March 25—
After a night of heavy explosions and fires, this city was strangely calm early today. Serbs seemed at ease, if angry over the NATO bombing; ethnic Albanians were anxious, even terrified of what was to come.

Black smoke rose from buildings burning on the southwestern edge of the city, one of the main casualties of the night. Another plume of smoke rose from the ridge on the eastern edge of Pristina, the Kosovo capital.

Though Serbs said that much of the damage and fires around the city had been caused by NATO missiles, it was the ethnic Albanians who bore the brunt of the violence overnight, as Serbian forces apparently used the NATO attacks as a pretext to go out and wreak still more havoc.

By about 2:30 this afternoon the order came that foreign journalists from NATO countries should leave Serbia, and about 20 men, who appeared typical of the hard-core paramilitary Serb forces who became notorious in Bosnia for the atrocities of ''ethnic cleansing,'' began to harass journalists. They forced them to leave, smashing equipment and setting fire to an armored vehicle used by CNN.

As the journalists departed, and with the NATO bombing already begun, a deepening sense of fear took hold in Pristina that the Serbs would now vent their rage against ethnic Albanian civilians in retaliation, a threat the Serbs themselves had issued often in the past.

If the first night of the bombing was any measure, they may be good for their word.

Today, in one of two barracks within the city untouched by the NATO strikes, near the Serb settlement of Kosovo Polje, soldiers lounged in the sun on the top of a tank, looking out over the fence onto the main road.

Barely 50 yards away, on the other side of an intersection, the door had been forced open to the small plant of the ethnic Albanian newspaper Kosova Sot, which had been closed down by the Serbian authorities eight days ago, after a court found the paper guilty of ''running an editorial policy that was against the Serbian regime.''

The roof of the building was partially smashed and burned, the debris lying among big printing presses. Outside in the courtyard stacks of newspapers on pallets were still burning. Bent and broken metal printing plates lay on the ground.

Nearby a long, low building that had housed private businesses -- a car repair shop and a plastics production laboratory -- smoldered. Its whitewashed brick walls and a blue sign that read ''Autoservis Dinor'' were still standing, but its roof had collapsed.

NATO missiles, aiming at the barracks, had missed and instead hit the car repair shop, said Radovan Urosevac, a Serb, though the targets of the NATO bombing lay beyond the city, at the airport to the south and at barracks outside the city.

''They were targeting the airport, and they missed it,'' said Mr. Urosevac, a director of the Serbian Media Center in Pristina, which is closely connected to the Serbian authorities.

''They targeted the army base in Kosovo Polje and they hit the Peugot car repair place,'' he added. ''I believe they were aiming at a power plant and hit a surface coal pit, 15 kilometers from Pristina.''

While it was hard to tell what had caused the fire, it had begun at about midnight not with an explosion, but with a small pinpoint glow that could be seen growing rapidly into a major conflagration. At the site, there was no missile crater visible and no pieces of missile casing.

Those were not the only fires. In Kosovo Polje, a predominantly Serb area, two Albanian cafes had been burned down, and half a dozen shops bore broken windows, bullet holes clearly showing in some of them. Armed Serb civilians stood around in the street, watching the cars and passers-by.

In downtown Pristina, glass and debris from two powerful explosions were spread across the main street. The Guri bar and pizzeria, and a private medical clinic, both run by ethnic Albanians, had been blown apart by bombs that did not appear to have come from the air. Glass, metal blinds and plaster had flown ten yards across the street from the force of the blasts.

They were not the first attacks on ethnic Albanian enterprises in the city, but they were certainly the most devastating. There were no reported casualties, since the explosions had happened late at night, when the buildings were empty.

While it is impossible to say who were the culprits, there were numerous cars and military jeeps driving through the blacked-out city late into the night. They crossed close to the barracks on the south edge of the city and passed back and forth by the Defense Ministry building on the main street.

With the large police and army presence checking the roads and main intersections, the freedom of movement enjoyed by the bombers suggested they had connections with the security forces.

The Serbian Prime Minister of Kosovo, Zoran Andjelkovic, invited foreign journalists to have breakfast with him at the central government building in Pristina, where he warned that ''those staying here they must behave in accordance with the situation.''

After waiters dispensed fizzy drinks, Mr. Andjelkovic arrived to make a brief statement. ''As far as NATO thinks it can establish peace and order with rockets, the rockets will continue,'' he said. ''Those wishing to support peace in Kosovo, I wish you luck.''

Within two hours the authorities served a notice on the journalists from NATO countries to leave Serbia. At the same time, some 20 armed men, in heavy boots and civilian clothes, with crew cuts and automatic weapons equipped with silencers, invaded the lobby of the Grand Hotel in central Pristina, where most foreigners were based.

Members of the group, some lean and wiry with lined faces and hard stares, had been largely responsible for the harassment of foreign journalists the previous night as the air-strikes began.

The men started smashing the gear of television crews and set fire to the CNN armored vehicle. They confiscated several cars and mobile phones as well. Mr. Andjelkovic then arrived and arranged for the remaining journalists to be escorted out.

There were also reports before today that two deputies to the notorious Serbian paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznjatovic, known as Arkan, had entered Pristina. It was Arkan's men who took part in some of the worst massacres of the conflict in Bosnia.

Ethnic Albanians here were visibly upset today at the departure of foreign journalists, fearing that Serb forces and paramilitaries would then have a free hand to carry out atrocities unobserved by Westerners.

The journalists left in about a dozen cars for the hourlong ride to the border. Along the way, Serb army columns passed coming from the other direction, including armored vehicles with mounted machine guns and troop trucks. The Serbs appeared to be moving men and equipment into Pristina, presumably to avoid NATO air strikes.

[After journalists had been forced out of the city, Pristina was reported to be quiet Thursday evening, although there were reports that the police and armed paramilitaries had begun house-to-house searches. Residents were bracing not only for the next wave of bombing, but for the chaos and bloodletting that Serbian police and civilians alike have been promising.]

As journalists departed and passed through southern Kosovo, the border towns of Kacanik and General Jankovic, were deserted. Two houses were on fire close to the border, but otherwise the place was eerily quiet.

Photos: BATTERING RAM -- Angry protesters try to break into the American Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia. Page A10. (Agence France-Presse)(pg. A1); In Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, early yesterday, a pillar of smoke marked damage inflicted during the first round of NATO attacks. The civilian buildings are near military barracks. (Mikica Petrovic/Associated Press)(pg. A11)